The present invention relates to optical pulse generators.
Long-distance transmission of large amounts of information is currently being achieved by transmitting optical pulses representing digital data over fiber optic transmission lines. These optical signals comprise trains of light pulses having small pulse width densely packed with respect to time. The use of pulses having extremely short duration helps to pack more information along the transmission lines. A variety of techniques are currently being employed to generate such pulses, however, optical pulses produced by many conventional methods are accompanied by noise at the base of the optical pulse. Light components in addition to the optical pulse itself arise as a result of dispersion, non-uniformity of the effective fiber core area, loss, the influence of high-order dispersion and other effects in the optical fiber communication system. Such unwanted light components resemble a pedestal of noise on which the optical pulse appears to sit. This noise component can cause inter-symbol interference and thereby increase the bit error rate of an optical communication system.
With the demand for transmission of more and more amounts of data, shorter and shorter duration optical pulses are desired. What is needed, therefore, are techniques and components for reducing the duration of optical pulses while minimizing or removing the aforementioned noise components accompanying the pulse.